The GIRL’S awakening on the ship was not typical. Her new body was a special job, kept as near to life as possible, ready at any moment to live. And her transference, instead of being passive like the 12,000 which had occurred so far, was extremely active. She had to do it all herself.
All Six had agreed long ago that one day this experiment would be made by one of them. None was satisfied with his or her present body. All wanted to share in the new gospel they were preaching to the Tinkers — new and better life in a new and better body.
It was natural that it was the GIRL who made the vital experiment. Her new body was exquisite. Yet it was hers, as it might have been if her life had been perfect from birth instead of just about as imperfect as a life could be. She changed in a moment from a witch to an angel — in outward form.
Unlike the transferred Tinkers, who remained in a coma until the ship reached Beta on its return journey, she was conscious at once, in full command of her immaculate new body, and leaped up to survey herself in a mirror. All was highly satisfactory.
Except …
The GIRL screamed.
A normal person, suddenly abnormal, might scream in horror.
For the GIRL it was exactly the opposite.
She was in a young, slim and beautiful body, but she was no longer a witch, and she knew what that meant.
The Four would kill her.
This was not what had been intended. The Tinkers who feared she was deliberately consigning them to final death had done her an injustice; she had intended, all being well, to control and complete the transfer as usual, back on the ship, in her new and beautiful body.
But now she was a normal girl. A surpremely beautiful, yet ordinary, woman. And in that first moment of bereavement even her new incredible beauty was no consolation.
Anyway, what was the use of being beautiful for four days, before extinction? Four years, perhaps — she filed away for later consideration that last flash of precognition, the last she would ever have.
She would not get those four years. On her return to Beta, she was dead.
To the Four, reduced again as surely by her transference as they had been reduced by the annihilation of the PLANNER, this trip could be a disaster. She had transferred a few of the masked Tinkers, those who were killed by the bowmen. Those immobilised by the gas she could do nothing about, because they were not dead … and now she had lost the power to do anything.
The Four would be very interested to hear what she was now able to tell them. But they would never transfer, not when it meant losing their powers. They would be very interested — but that wouldn’t stop them killing her to keep the knowledge to themselves.
She had to get off the ship. Her chances with the Alphans, slim as they might be, were better than with the Tinkers and the Four, because those chances were nil.
Control of the ship was not her responsibility. Any moment now, when the siutation became clear, the ship would take off.
She looked around for clothes, found only a new white overall. It could not have been better. The overall had never been worn. Wearing it would be a girl who had never lived.
She was purged. Her new body was clean, and so was she. Whether she would ever be able to convince anyone else of the truth of this remained to be seen.
It was ironically symbolic that she was a virgin again.
Leaving the cabin, she saw two crewmen, who goggled at her. But they knew who she must be: she waved them aside, and they obeyed.
Edwina … that would do. She needed a name now. Ordinary people needed names.
Although she knew little of ships, or indeed anything else technical, she understood airlocks, and there was one nearby. She would have to drop some twenty feet to the ground — could she do that without injuring her perfect new body? She had to try.
She had been cursed from birth with ugliness and an evil talent. Now she had lost both.
Would it be possible for others to realise this? Or would the rest of the human race insist on destroying her just as the Four would have done?
As she dropped to the ground, so far below, more than twenty feet, she thought with a hang-over of superstition that this might settle it. If she broke her back or knocked herself out, the ship would destroy her on take-off, which must be very soon.
If she was able to walk away, could it be merely to death?